Robert Rorabeck

The Catfish And The Minnows - Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Soft and languishing on Fire Island where you lost your life, Frank O'Hara—Falling in love with firemen, Writing poems about Chinamen—As the birds touched their wings like Lips to the sky, While the coffins wondered why ever The dead had to die—And up there the echoes never hadTo fall down, The tulips bloomed into the midnights ofThe midnight playgrounds—And we got off wherever we could—In the middle of the day, bloomed the pornographiesOf our woods, And the echoes resolved themselves to theCatfish and the minnows—Until I had to look my muse in the eye, And had to reassure her that she would never die.